


Another Fine Mess – もう一度すばらしい混乱

by Brezifus



Category: Code Lyoko
Genre: Bilingual Character(s), Blood and Violence, F/M, Gen, Japanese, XANA attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 08:45:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18139994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brezifus/pseuds/Brezifus
Summary: Yumi wakes up only able to speak her mother tongue without her control, prompting the gang to go investigate the cause on Lyoko--to be interrupted by a larger XANA attack.Written several years ago as a challenge to myself with a much narrower understanding of the Japanese language, please no hit, was barely learning then and am still learning now. That being said,  all original Japanese has been left alone because I'm too chicken to read it again.





	Another Fine Mess – もう一度すばらしい混乱

**Author's Note:**

> what it says on the tin, boyos. the xana attack is a poor assumption of tetsuo the iron man, but that don't matter do it
> 
> anyways, without further ado;

By the time the tower had been deactivated it was three in the morning. Doggedly Yumi walked home alone. It had been a rough day of midterms coupled with XANA up to no good, again. When everyone had devirtualized after a job well done, Yumi did not feel like speaking. Nobody held it against her, and they let her go without any trouble for which she was thankful.

As she shuffled into her house she was glad to see her parents were not awake waiting for her. Finding her way to her room she slumped on her bed, falling asleep in her clothes.

~~

Morning came too early but she was used to this by now. Greeting her parents with good-hearted mumbles, she tussled Hiroki’s hair despite the boy’s protests and headed out for school, blinking the sleep away from her eyes.

As usual, her group of friends were hanging around the vending machines. Odd was helping Aelita choose what drink she wanted while Jeremie looked on in amusement. Ulrich looked up at her arrival and waved at her.

“Morning, Yumi. Did you sleep well?”

“うん、少しできた。” Yumi confessed with a yawn. “みんなは元気？”

At the sound of her voice everyone looked up and stared at her.

“おい” Yumi said, scrunching her face in confusion, “何を見ているの?　ひろきちゃんはまだ顔に絵を描いた?”

“Yumi…are you okay?” Ulrich asked. Yumi opened her mouth to explain to him that she just  _told_  him she was fine when Odd interrupted.

“Let me put it this way; You’re uh…speaking Chinese.”

“ _Japanese_ ,” Ulrich hastily corrected, “Wait—are you, Yumi?”

“何と言ってるの?　フランス語で話しているよ!”

Aelita looked wide-eyed as Jeremie’s jaw gaped.

“Okay, no doubt about it,” Jeremie said while fixing his glasses, “You’re speaking Japanese, Yumi, and I bet it’s XANA’s doing to boot.”

“えー?!”

“Okay, I think I understood that one,” Odd commented about her expulsion. Ulrich turned to glare at him but it came as more of a confused concern than anything else.

“We’ve still got twenty minutes before class. Let’s go to my room to see if we can’t find anything out,” Jeremie suggested, already walking swiftly to the dorms. Everyone followed wordlessly, especially Yumi. Ulrich slowed to match her slightly dazed pace.

“You can understand us, at least, can’t you?”

Yumi nodded with a frown.

“That’s good at least. Don’t worry, Jeremie’ll figure something out before you have to go home tonight.”

“でも、いつ帰る?　いつもいつも遅く帰る。”

“Er, yeah, I hope so too.” Ulrich said, hoping he responded appropriately. Considering the dejected look on her face, he didn’t. Damn. He really regretted the fact that he hadn’t glanced more at that Japanese textbook he had ordered for himself. Not that Yumi knew he had it.  _Odd_  didn’t even know he had it. Ulrich had kept it rather secret from everyone.

“大丈夫?”

Ulrich jerked from his thoughts and looked over at Yumi, flustered, “Oh, uh, yeah, I guess.”

Yumi’s lopsided, knowing smirk emerged and a sense of relief momentarily washed over Ulrich. At least she hadn’t become completely disheartened. Or she was teasing him behind the scenes. Either way, he didn’t mind.

“Okay, so, here’s what we know,” Jeremie began as he typed on his computer, “Yumi wasn’t caught by the schyphozoa the last trip to Lyoko. That severely limits how this could’ve happened. Maybe something happened during devirtualization. I wonder if it’s a remnant of the one time you  _did_  get caught by the schyphozoa. Something like a ‘virus’ that’s blocking some language receptors.”

“怖いよ、ジェレミーくん！直せるか？”

“Ahh don’t worry Yumi!” Odd said, slapping her back jovially, “Remember when we switched bodies? We got that fixed in a jiffy!”

“一日は  _jiffy_ じゃない。” Yumi glared at him.

“At least this isn’t  _that_  bad,” Jeremie jumped in without turning around, “As far as we know there’s no danger to your existence if you continue on like this. Still, I’ll work on this every opportunity I get. You’ll see, you’ll be back to normal in no time.”

“Just say that you have a sore throat!” Aelita suggested, “Write a note out to show the teachers, that way you won’t be embarrassed,  _or_  questioned.”

“いい考えと思う!” Yumi perked up, pulling a notebook out of her bag. The group smiled as she scribbled out several words on a ripped piece of paper, but the smiles fell as she showed the paper to them.

“Oh boy,” Odd muttered to himself, looking over the foreign characters.

｢すみません。喉が痛いから、あまり話せません。よく薬を飲んでいて、明日元気になると思います。ありがとうございます。」

“N-No worries,” Aelita hastily said as Yumi’s expression began to fall into frustration, “I’ll write you a note, okay?”

Yumi sighed, “ありがとう、アイリータちゃん。”

“Speaking of class, though, we should go!” Jeremie said. Everyone soon shuffled out of his room, Yumi hanging her head low. Each of her friends bade her good luck before they split up, and though she smiled at them she didn’t  _quite_  feel the luck. At the very least her parents would understand her so it wouldn’t be  _so_  bad if she had to go home without the problem being fixed. Still, it was annoying as hell and just think of how far she  _wouldn’t_  get in school with this language setback.

Though Jeremie didn’t say that there were any degradation problems to be worried about, what if there was a problem he had yet to see? Such as the fact that she’d suddenly start forgetting every single language she knew  _but_  Japanese? If she couldn’t communicate with her friends, they’d be facing a huge setback. As she sat down in class she thought way back to the time XANA had taken over a satellite to screw over their communications before aiming for their lives. Going on just speaking Japanese without any danger of forgetting languages all together was too easy. XANA was usually so hellbent on breaking the group apart that he wouldn’t leave such an advantage alone.

“Hey Yumi,” William greeted as he sat down next to her. She gave him a small, slightly pained smile. His expression remained cheery but grew a little serious.

“Bad day?”

She twisted her mouth, contemplating what that could mean for her.  _Yes_ , it was a bad day because she found out XANA had screwed with her brain.  _No,_  because it really wasn’t so bad. She ruffled through her pockets and brought out the note that Aelita wrote for her. William read it with a smirk.

“Can’t even whisper, huh?” He said, looking at her as though he didn’t believe she had to be  _completely_  silent. Yumi rolled her eyes and motioned for him to shut up. William sniffed and handed the paper back to her.

“ _Whatever,”_ he breathed as the teacher began class. Yumi shot him a look that screamed  _'Right back at you_ ’.

Throughout the rest of the class William tried to press the issue further, but Yumi, stubborn as ever, ignored him.

~~

“ _Odd,_ drop it already!” Ulrich exclaimed, exasperated. People were steadily congregating for lunch, and the two of them were arguing as Aelita and Jeremie sat down next to them.

“Well it’s a good idea, isn’t it? All you have to do is ask!” Odd defended between large chews of mashed potatoes and roast beef.

“What’s going on?” Aelita asked, sitting down next to Ulrich as Jeremie sat next to Odd, across from her.

“ _Nothing_ ,” Ulrich growled, glowering at Odd.

“Yeah, right, nothing, just that Ulrich’s missing the opportunity of a lifetime!” Odd crammed a biscuit into his mouth, “Y'know, ashking Yumi to teasch himf Japaneeshe!”

“You mind  _enunciating_ a little bit, Odd?” Jeremie asked sarcastically, covering his food from the bits and pieces that flew from Odd’s mouth.

“Well, that  _is_  an idea—,” Aelita briefly agreed before Ulrich put his fist down on the table.

“No, it’s  _not_ an  _idea!_  She’d be too—too embarrassed!”

“You mean,” Odd gulped down his food and failed to hide his devilish smirk, “ _You’d_ be too embarrassed!”

“ _I’m NOT embarrassed!!_ ” Ulrich roared, standing up to intimidate Odd.

“恥ずかしい？どうして？”

Ulrich froze. The rest of the group fell quiet to watch the scene unfold. He turned to see Yumi over his shoulder, just about to put her tray down on the other side of him. A terrible blush spread over his cheeks and his fingers curled tightly to hide the slight tremble they had.

“H-Hi Yumi,” he muttered.

“こんにちわウーリックくん。そのことは何についての？”

Odd grinned, “See, she said 'hello’ in Japanese—,”

“ _Shut. Up._ ” Ulrich seethed, sitting back down. Yumi shrugged and sat down next to him. This was not the first time something like this had happened between the fickle roommates.

“How’s your day been going, Yumi?” Jeremie asked, politely. She gave him a look of pain. He twisted his mouth sympathetically.

“We’ve only got one class left today, we’ll go to the factory afterwards. Sound good?”

Yumi was about to nod when a sharp elbow smacked her in the side of the head.

“いたい！なんだよ？!”

“Oh, so you  _can_  speak!” Sissi’s annoying high-pitched voice rang out, “Word around school is that Yumi Ishiyama became a mute overnight! Seems like they were wrong, sounds like she just became a cretin!”

“ _Sissi!_ ” Ulrich yelled, “What did you do  _that_  for?!”

“Didn’t I just tell you?” Sissi chastised, “Or have  _you_  gone deaf as well, Ulrich darling?”

Ulrich’s lips curled in rage, but before he could snap at her Odd spoke up.

“Oh we could hear you loud and clear, Sissi, but it’s hard to concentrate on words when your  _face_ is as cretin-ish as it is!”

Several kids around them stifled their laughter as Sissi’s eyes narrowed on the scrawny boy in front of her.

“I’ll have you know I spent  _several hours_ on my appearance this morning, which is way more than  _you_  could say, dirty creep!”

“Boy it’s a shame those hours all went to waste, huh?” Odd smirked, “Maybe next time you should spend those hours on growing a brain instead!”

Sissi sniffed and, finally,  _finally_  walked away to the farthest side of the lunchroom. Aelita complimented Odd’s wit with a small smile, urging Odd to puff his chest out in pride as he shoveled pudding into his mouth. Yumi hissed Sissi’s name under her breath before starting her lunch with a frown.

“Like I said,” Jeremie continued, “We should have this mess fixed by tomorrow.”

“そうだといい。。。” Yumi breathed.

~~

“We’ll basically have to go into Sector 5. Hopefully there we’ll find the information we need to cure you, but it’ll take a while, and I’m nervous about virtualizing you again, Yumi. Who knows, maybe virtualizing you will make this permanent.” Jeremie worried, shifted the bag on his shoulders.

“ _Relax_ , Jer, everything’s gonna be okay. We’ve done this before, after all!” Odd shushed him, stretching his skinny arms in the air. Jeremie huffed indignantly but Aelita’s nod kept him quiet.

The five friends walked through the forest, the sun still golden and the trees swaying lazily above them. It was nice, for once in their life, to walk through the forest without a sense of urgency or fear. It didn’t last long, though, because as soon as all five of them placed their feet in the sewers Jeremie’s laptop went wild.

“Oh no not  _now_!” Jeremie wailed, snatching and unfolding his scooter. Though neither of them knew what the attack could possibly be there should’ve been no time to lose.

By the time Yumi’s feet hit the floor the attack hit. A writhing mass of wire and scrap metal dragged its way across the floor. It towered over them, screeching and bending. At some points it resembled a human, bending into twisted shapes of pain while at others it reverted to a pile of undulating junk.

“ _Okay_ , is it just me or was XANA’s previous android better? I mean the last one was no Iron Man  _either_ but—,”

Odd barely finished his sentence before several thick wires shot out from the mass of metal. Each of the five skittered backwards, avoiding them as they dug into the factory floor. Jeremie tripped and tumbled, losing his glasses along the way. Aelita was quick to snatch them as Ulrich helped Jeremie to his feet.

“We’ve got to get to Lyoko!” Ulrich shouted, pushing Jeremie towards the elevator, “Yumi, what about you?”

“ジェレミーくんを守らなきゃいけないんだ!　急いで!” Yumi had already positioned herself into a defensive position, and she didn’t seem willing to move from her spot at all. Ulrich gave her a meaningful glance before leaping back into the elevator car. More wires shot out, ripping up the factory’s floor.

“Don’t worry Ulrich!” Odd panted as he dodged the wires to reach the elevator, “All Yumi has to do is yell for the next ten episodes straight, and eventually her hair will turn blonde and spiky! No sweat!”

Yumi glowered at Odd as the door slowly closed on the elevator, “ゆるしてあげない。”

She could hear Odd’s cheery laughter echo until the door closed. Then she turned towards the monstrosity. Anywhere else it would seem that such a monster would be at home in a B-rate horror movie, a movie she would simply shrug at and continue on her way. In real life though, it was terrifying. The mass of metal seemed to take the form of a human again, but before Yumi could see what happened afterwards she turned tail and ran.

~~

“No,  _no,_ this is bad, I was wrong!” Jeremie wailed. Shortly after the Ulrich, Aelita, and Odd had been virtualized, he had begun researching, almost instantly realizing his mistake.

“What’s wrong, Jeremie?” Aelita asked, gripping Ulrich’s waist a little tighter as he sped the overbike along the ice sector. The tower lay in sight, far along the path on a secluded iceberg. Odd zoomed by their side, tail whipping with the wind.

“Yumi could’ve been virtualized, it’s the  _return_  trip we need to worry about! Sending her back in time would not only solidify her speaking in Japanese, but the extra juice it would give XANA would give him free range to start degenerating her mind!”

“So instead of Japanese, Yumi would eventually just spit froth at us and climb buildings like a giant spider?”

“Odd, what the  _hell_  have you been watching when I’m not in the room?” Ulrich shot at him, “Definitely not psychology documentaries.”

“Guys, guys,  _please_ , this is urgent—If Yumi loses her sanity it may be worse than just putting her in a mental hospital; between now and then she could say things, things that could reveal XANA and Lyoko, which would not only end Aelita but we’d  _never_  get Yumi back either!” Jeremie explained, frantically typing away at the keyboard.

“With you, it’s always urgent,” Odd complained, “Don’t worry, Einstein. Yumi’s tough. She won’t crack anytime soon.”

“Tower first. Sector 5 second.” Aelita said authoritatively, “Yumi’s counting on us.”

“Yes, sir!” Odd exclaimed, speeding forward ahead of them. Ulrich groaned.

“That dork is going to get himself killed.”

~~

Yumi breathed heavily, sweat running down the small of her back. She had somehow run herself into a small, dark room of the factory. Her shoulder hurt like hell, it had bruised terribly when she failed to dodge a wire. At least it didn’t tear through her skin and take her arm off. Yumi shivered at the thought and grasped her arm, ensuring it was still there.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket and she picked it up.

“もしもし？”

“Glad to hear you’re still on your feet, Yumi,” Jeremie’s voice crackled from the other end, “Odd and Ulrich are almost at the tower, but some monsters are on their way to intercept them. I know you can’t really give me an update on how you’re doing, so to play it safe I’ll keep you on the line, okay?”

“わかった、ジェレミーくん。”She panted, letting out a slow, long breath.

“Uhh, say Yumi, what does that - _kun_  thing you keep saying after my name mean?”

“時間がない、ジェレミー!” Yumi chastised as the junk metal monstrosity pounded at the walls of the room.

“Ah! Uhh, right, sorry,” Jeremie apologized after hearing the urgency in her voice.

The monster broke through the wall like it was paper and Yumi’s breath caught in her throat, releasing only a squeaking noise.

“Yumi? Yumi!” Jeremie called, moments before her phone was crushed in the grinding of wires and metal.

Yumi stumbled away from the monster, finding herself stuck in a corner with no escape. She turned, seeing the remains of her phone disappear somewhere in the monster’s inconsistent body.

“あ。。。あ！たすけて！！”

~~

Ulrich swore as his body skidded on the ice. Aelita tumbled head over heels next to him as the overbike flickered and disappeared. Two hornets and a tarantula approached them from behind, the culprits of the disaster.

“ _Odd!_  Get back here! Take Aelita to the tower, I’ll hold them off!” he shouted.

“Okey-dokey good buddy! Good luck!” Odd saluted as he swung by. Aelita leaped onto the overboard with ease, grasping Odd’s shoulders before he sped off again. Ulrich grimaced, triplicating himself. He was going to need that luck Odd wished on him.

“Guys?” Jeremie’s voice came over the sky as Ulrich dodged several lasers, his clone taking out a hornet, “I don’t want you to panic but I just lost contact with Yumi,”

“ _What_?” Ulrich spurted, followed by a cry of pain as the tarantula’s laser found him. As the two clones disappeared to the torrent of lasers, Ulrich gave a battle cry and rushed the tarantula, cutting off its arms before giving the head a clean slice. The tarantula screeched then fell, exploding at Ulrich’s feet. Before he could sprint away to aid Odd and Aelita the final hornet sprayed him with acid.

“Ulrich!” Jeremie shouted as the icon spun and disappeared from his screen.

“Huh, did Ulrich just get devirtualized?” Odd asked, “And he said  _I_  was gonna be the one to get offed first!”

Ulrich barreled up the ladder between the scanner room and the console room, too impatient for the elevator.

“What do you  _mean_  you lost contact with Yumi? Aelita’s not close to deactivating the tower, Jeremie, and after that they have to go to Sector 5!”

“I know I know, l-look, the only thing that happened was that I was talking to her, then this crunching sound, then the phone went dead.” Ulrich stiffened. Jeremie took notice of it but kept speaking.

“The last trace I have of her phone was in the northern part of the factory.”

“Good luck, Jeremie!” Ulrich called before bolting to the elevator. The brown-haired boy tapped his foot impatiently as the elevator ascended, clenching and unclenching his fists. When the elevator door opened he gaped at the complete destruction the factory had become. The floor was torn up like an old gravel road, with several girders impersonating fallen trees along the way.

“Yumi,” he breathed, fear gripping his chest, “ _Yumi, Yumi, Yumi!_ If you can hear me,  _answer!_ ”

Ulrich bolted in the path the destruction seemed to take, praying he’d reach her in time.

~~

_That._

That was  _blood_.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

Yumi’s legs buckled underneath her and she collapsed. A piece of junk on the monster dripped with her blood, making her wince and writhe as it retreated from her stomach. The poor girl trembled from the pain, grasping for hands that weren’t there to hold her. Yumi wouldn’t be able to say she expected it to end this way, but she supposed it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Dying alone to a XANA attack. That seemed to leap beyond the realm of tragic.

Then she heard a voice desperately calling her name. Yumi raised her head, tears of pain building at the corners of her eyes. Giving a hateful glare to the mass of metal in front of her she inhaled as deeply as she could despite the pain and screamed.

“たすけて！！ウーリック、たすけて!”

“Yumi!” Ulrich responded, shouldering his way into the room, “I’m here, Yumi—ah!”

The monster had picked him up by the neck, his legs pinwheeling the air beneath him. Ulrich’s breaths began to come out in pained chokes. Yumi wrapped her arm around her stomach and, using the wall, stood up.

“いや！おまえの敵はあたしだよ！その男の子を傷つけて、あたしはおまえを殺す!”

The monster turned to her and she smirked, spitting blood to the side. She thought of what Odd said, alluding to the ten-episode power-up she didn’t have at her disposal. If he was here at this moment, she’d forgive him. She’d forgive everything.

“そう。あたしがほしがっている。”

_Everything_.

~~

“It’s okay, Jeremie!” Odd called to the sky, “The monsters are taken care of, I’ve got half my life points, Aelita is in the tower!”

“Hurry, Aelita…!” Jeremie murmured even though he knew she didn’t need any reminder what could possibly happen.

~~

Ulrich fell into a pile of inanimate junk. Angry red marks circled his neck, and he rubbed them ruefully as he surveyed the room.

Yumi stood on shaking knees, smiling at him. At first it didn’t register, but then he saw the blood seeping out from underneath her arm. She collapsed, and Ulrich scrambled over the junk to her side.

“ _Yumi_ ,” he coughed, raising her onto his lap. He was about to say something else when he moved her arm away from her stomach.

When he saw that damage that had been done his voice became stuck in his throat and he began to tremble. Yumi coughed and winced. He gently hushed her, digging his phone out of his pocket.

“ _Jeremie,”_ he pleaded the moment he heard him pick up, “Jeremie we  _need_  a return trip!”

“Just a second, Ulrich, they just made it to Sector 5—,”

“ _No,_  Jeremie, you don’t understand!” Ulrich choked, “We  _need_  a return trip  _now_!”

Hearing the raw, desperate emotion in Ulrich’s voice caused Jeremie to pause for a moment. As Ulrich gave stuttered breaths into the phone, Jeremie switched over to Lyoko.

“Guys,” Jeremie’s voice was solemn, “You need to get in and out as fast as possible, you hear?”

“What’s going on, Jeremie?” Aelita said as she ran past several obstacles, following Odd.

“I don’t know and I’m afraid to ask. Look. I’ve analyzed what XANA was up to. If you give me the data I can remote control and turn off or even disable the thing that got itself into Yumi’s head.”

Odd slapped his paw on the device, opening a door to the outside, “You mind telling me how Yumi got that device  _in_  her head in the first place?”

Jeremie grimaced, “That, I don’t know yet. As of now it’s the last thing on my mind. Please hurry!”

Switching back to Ulrich, Jeremie bit back his initial words. Ulrich was crying. It was obvious, he could hear it over the phone. Usually the brown-haired boy was too proud to allow himself to cry in front of anyone, Ulrich’s own self included.

“Ulrich? They’re reaching the outside now. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Ulrich couldn’t respond, simply turning off his phone and dropping it on the floor.

“Hang in there, Yumi,” he whispered to her, wrapping his arms around her body. She coughed, twisting her body until she could see his face though it was too dark to make out any fine details.

“ウーリック、”

“No! No Yumi, please, don’t talk, you’re hurt!”

“わかー、”she paused in the middle of a word and swallowed something, Ulrich  _hoped_ it wasn’t blood, “わかったよ、ウーリック。うるさい。”

Ulrich’s grip on her tightened, trembling still. Yumi’s face contorted in pain, but she forced it away.

“時々私たちについて考える。時々。。。いっしょにを夢見る。うそをつかない時。うらやましくない時。その考え。。。”

A cold shiver ran up and down Yumi’s spine and Ulrich held her tighter, listening as the words fell out of her. Words he couldn’t understand. Foreign words. Beautiful words. Words that enchanted him, Yumi’s words. They weakened with each breath he took and his chest hurt more and more.

“好きだ。” Yumi moved the hand that was holding her wound and placed it on his warm, shaking arm. In turn, Ulrich moved to replace her hand, gently covering her bared belly.

“好きだ。”

Yumi flinched and winced, her back weakly arcing. Ulrich could do nothing but press his hand down on her wound, praying the bleeding would stop as a bright white light enveloped them.

~~

“Morning, Yumi!” Aelita greeted, catching her Japanese friend’s attention and drawing her to where the four of them were standing near the vending machines, “Did you sleep well?”

A smile crept up Yumi’s lips.

“うん。少しできた。”

Everybody froze, staring at her in worry as Yumi’s expression didn’t change. Then her smile grew until she was laughing.

“じょうだん！じょうだん、 _I’m kidding_! I slept pretty well, Aelita, thank you!”

Everyone released a breath of relief as Yumi continued to laugh.

“Hey don’t laugh, Yumi!” Odd chided, “If you kept that up, I would have to translate for you!”

“ _Please_ ,” Yumi replied, “I’d deck your brains out before you did—if you had any, that is!”

Odd waved her off, “Oh no, don’t worry about that.  _Ulrich’s_  gonna be the one to translate for you,  _he’s_ the one that has a Japanese textbook hidden in our room!”

“Wh- _What_?!” Ulrich exclaimed, “How did—n-no! No I  _don’t_  have a textbook!”

“H-He,” a bright red blush seized Yumi’s cheeks, traveling her neck, “He has what?” Did that mean he understood what she said to him before the return trip?

“Oop!” Odd said, noticing the blush on Yumi’s face as him trodding in on something intimate that had happened between the two lovebirds somewhere between Ulrich’s devirtualization and the return trip. A sly smile crept up his face as he swung his scrawny arms around Jeremie and Aelita’s necks.

“ _Jeremie!_  Aelitaaa! Did I ever tell you about the time my five sisters took me on a camping trip? It’s a tale of horror and humiliation of yours truly! It’s a tale I’ll tell you… _very…far…away…_ from Ulrich and Yumi!”

Before the two could protest Odd dragged them to the other side of the courtyard. Ulrich was two seconds away from protesting their removal  _himself_ , but sheer embarrassment kept him silent. Yumi glanced over at him without turning her head.

“So, um—,”

“I haven’t looked at it,” Ulrich interrupted glumly, “That much. I mean uh, I don’t know what you said to me.”

A shy smile crept along Yumi’s lips and she ducked her head down, hiding her face.

“Maybe you should show me that textbook sometime, I’ll be able to tell you if it’s any good or not.” she suggested, quickly brushing her hair away.

“U-Uh. Oh! Yeah. I’d uh…I’d like that.”

Yumi’s smile grew.

_I’d like that._

終わり


End file.
